Blaze Wyndham

by Bertrice Small

  “A betrothal ceremony such as we have had is almost as binding, my lord,” she whispered up at him, and her mouth was tempting beyond all.

  “Nay, my fiery Bliss, you will not lure me with your adorable wiles. In our bedchamber, sweetheart, I will be the master!”

  “Only until I learn the ways of love!” she replied fiercely at him. “Then, my lord, we will be equals, or we will not be at all!”

  “Do not toy with me, Bliss.” He smoldered dangerously at her as she pressed her breasts against his chest to give emphasis to her words.

  With a quick movement Bliss removed herself from his embrace. “Good night, my lord,” she said sweetly. “Sleep well!” Then she was gone from the alcove, and he was left standing there for a surprised minute, his manhood angry and hard.

  With a smothered curse he stepped from their hidden place to go after her. He would catch her, and he would kiss her into mewling submission. What nonsense did she spout about equality in the bedchamber? A man was master in his own house. Certainly she knew that. Looking about, he discovered that Bliss was nowhere in sight. A grin suddenly creased his handsome face. The little witch! She spoke her nonsense but to arouse his passions even more. God’s foot! She played with him like a fisherman with a trout. She did it, of course, to keep his interest hot, clever witch! He suspected, however, that even after their marriage Bliss would not be a dull woman to live with. Rubbing his aching member ruefully, he hurried off to find his lonely bed, for he and Tony had the beginnings of a long journey ahead of them tomorrow.

  When the morning came Blaze seemed to be everywhere overseeing to her guests’ various departures. Lady Mary Kingsley protested the comfort of one of the earl’s coaches that was to take her back to St. Frideswide’s.

  “ ’Tis not necessary, my child. My convent is but five miles on the other side of the river. The day is pleasant, and not too cold. I should enjoy the walk.”

  “Were it May, Reverend Mother, I should not disagree with you, but’tis January. Though the day be fair, I sense a storm coming. Take the coach to please me.”

  Lady Mary did not argue further, and was shortly gone. The coach from Riverside arrived to take the lesser Wyndhams back home. Lord Richard had not been well over the holiday, and had sadly kept mostly to his room. Now his manservant aided the crippled gentleman to his coach as Lady Dorothy fretted and fussed.

  “Is it wise for Tony to leave them now?” Blaze asked her husband.

  “He does his father no good in staying. Richard would have him wed. Tony pleases his father best by going off to court with Owen. If my sister’s husband is meant to die now, he will die whether his son be here or not,” answered Edmund fatalistically.

  Delight Morgan watched sadly as Anthony Wyndham rode off with Owen FitzHugh. They would escort the lesser Wyndhams home, and then go on to court from there. The handsome Earl of Marwood kissed Bliss quite thoroughly, to her deep satisfaction, as he bid her goodbye, but there was no especial farewell for little Delight, who bravely held back her tears of disappointment. She had tried so hard to attract Anthony’s attentions, but he didn’t even know she was alive.

  Lord Kingsley intended to return to Ashby with the Morgans for a visit. Other than his mother he was alone in the world, and his small estate was well run even without him. Blythe was radiant with her happiness, for she had truly fallen in love with the kind and homely young man who was to be her husband. He had become her whole world even as she had become his, for Nicholas Kingsley could still not believe his good fortune in having this exquisite young beauty for a betrothed wife.

  Blaze was not unhappy to see the several coaches belonging to her husband making their way from the house and down the river road to the ferry crossing. She had enjoyed her family’s visit, but now she was eager to be alone with Edmund once more. It seemed that she had not had him really to herself for close to a month. She looked forward to the long winter months of isolation, and snuggled against him as she happily waved her family off.

  As if he sensed her mood, he said, “Are you as glad as I am to be alone once more, my sweet?”

  She giggled. “Aye! I am! How awful that must sound, but as much as I love them, I am happy to see them go.”

  “Shall we ride today? ’Tis warm for January, and we’ll not see many fine days like this until spring.”

  “Aye, my love, let us ride,” she agreed with him.

  Within the hour they had changed into the proper clothing, and rode out across the winter landscape. There was a springlike feel to the day, but no breeze. Only the sheerest of gauzelike clouds broke the bright blue of the sky, and the sun was warm upon their backs. The trees stood leafless and quiet, but looking closely, one could see carefully protected fat buds upon the branches that silently foretold of the rich spring to come. Two gray-brown rabbits nibbled on a tiny patch of greenery that had been revived by the warmth of the day, and in a field on the forest’s edge a small flock of red deer browsed. Edmund and Blaze did not speak for long periods of time, the calm beauty of the morning absorbing them completely. High in a tree a squirrel chattered a warning, and gazing skyward, Blaze could see a red kite circling as it sought for its breakfast.

  She had grown to love this land in the few months since she had come to RiversEdge. It was a beautiful land, and she felt a strange pride in knowing that the son she bore one day would inherit Edmund’s earldom and all the traditions that went with being a Wyndham lord. That she had been chosen to be Edmund’s wife still amazed her, and she smiled, thinking that a year ago she had not even known his name. She had been nothing more than the eldest daughter of an impoverished baronet with no dowry and no hope for a future. What a difference twelve months could make!

  “Why do you smile?” he asked her.

  “I was thinking on how fortunate I am,” she replied honestly. “I was thinking of January but a year ago when my future was so uncertain. Now my future is no longer unsure, for I am your wife, and I shall mother our children, and we shall live to grow old together!”

  “Ah, my sweet,” he answered her, “you are yet too young to know that nothing is ever certain. Times change. People change.”

  “No,” Blaze said in her innocence. “We will never change.”

  “We will grow old. Age is change,” he told her.

  “But our love will not change, Edmund! If our love for one another does not change, then no matter the years that pass, we shall remain as always. We shall not change.”

  He found her logic interesting. “May God see it so, my sweet,” he said quietly, and he signaled her to turn her horse for home.

  The remainder of January was cold but pleasant. In February, however, winter returned to remind them that it had not yet finished with the land. The snows came, and soon great drifts covered the estate. It grew so cold that the river froze solid, forcing old Rumford, the ferryman, and his sons to sit idle in their cottage. To Blaze’s delight they rode one frigid sunny day for several miles upon the river itself. Blaze had never imagined such a thing possible, and Edmund found himself both amused and refreshed by her enthusiasm. He thought once again as he had so many times since she had come to RiversEdge that she made him feel like a lad of twenty again. When in her excitement she rode directly up the center of the river away from him, he felt great fear, for he realized he could not have borne the pain of her loss.

  On the last day of February Richard Wyndham died quietly in his sleep. Lady Dorothy, though prepared for her husband’s demise, nonetheless mourned him deeply, but in the letter she sent to her son at court, she cautioned him not to spoil his chances with the king by returning to be with her. She did not, she stated bluntly, need him hovering about her as if she were some fragile flower. Knowing his mother wanted her time to grieve alone so she might come to terms with her loss, Tony sent his mother’s servant back home with the message that he would honor her request.

  With March came rain, and wind, and mud. There was no one who did not look forward to Easter, and the end of f
asting. Blaze was beginning to hate the smell of cooking fish, and only the thought of her sisters’ upcoming nuptials could cheer her.

  Bliss and Blythe had decided to marry on the same day, thus saving their father the expense of two separate weddings. As Father John could find nothing in canonical law to forbid the marriage sacrament being performed for two siblings at the same time, he had agreed to it. Edmund had suggested to Blaze that the twins be wed at RiversEdge, but she disagreed with him.

  “You are kind, my lord, to offer,” she said, “but you must understand that my father swallowed his pride for the sake of his children when he allowed you to have me without a suitable dowry; and again when he allowed you to settle dowries upon my sisters as part of your settlement upon me. The people of Ashby were robbed of our wedding. My father would not take their pleasure from them a second time. Even my dear and ambitious Bliss would agree with me on this, Edmund.”

  She was right, he realized, and he marveled that one so young and lacking in worldly experience could be so wise.

  The rains continued into April, leaving the roads mired in thick mud, and although the countryside grew lush with new green, and flowers sprang up upon the hillsides, Blaze despaired. Her sisters’ wedding day was fixed for the last day in April. Would the rains never cease? Though it was but cloudy the day that they left RiversEdge for Ashby, the Wye was swollen with an excess of both melting snows from its northern tip and the spring rains. It took both Rumford and his eldest son to keep the small ferry from being caught up in the whirling waters and swept away.

  Pale of visage, Blaze clung nervously to her husband as the boat bobbed across the river. Her color did not return quickly as they rode, and he began to fear for her, but she laughed weakly.

  “The bouncing but distressed my belly, sir. Sadly the jogging of my horse helps not, but I will be all right when we get to Ashby,” she told him.

  Ashby! Blaze looked down upon her ancestral home for the first time in seven months, and tears filled her eyes. It had never looked so beautiful to her eyes, and as much as she loved RiversEdge, there would always be a place in her heart for Ashby. To her delight the sun was beginning to peep out from behind the clouds for the first time in over a week. It was a good omen for the impending marriages that would be celebrated on the morrow. It would be so good to see her family again.

  “Your color has returned,” the earl noted to his wife.

  “It is the excitement of being here,” she answered him. “I am so glad for Bliss and Blythe. I want them to be as happy as we are, my darling! Had it not been for you, neither would have met her husband. You are the most wonderful man in the world, Edmund Wyndham!”

  “Madam, you will turn my head for certain.” He chuckled as they rode up before the house.

  The Morgan family poured from their home to welcome Blaze and her husband. Quickly their escort was sent off to be settled, and the earl and his countess brought inside for refreshments. Though Blaze refused the food offered her, she gratefully drank a small goblet of sweet red wine.

  Rosemary Morgan with a sharp maternal eye noted this, and drew her eldest daughter aside. “Are you breeding?” she demanded without any preamble. “When was your last flux? Do you have any strange cravings? Has your belly been distressed at all these last weeks?”

  “At the end of February, Mama.” Blaze felt like a small girl again in her mother’s presence, which annoyed her somewhat.

  “Then you’re breeding,” said Lady Rosemary matter-of-factly. “What of the rest?”

  “My belly has been distressed more than is usual for me,” admitted Blaze, “and I found that I could not eat the fish as Lent drew to a close. I have no craving that would be considered odd, however.”

  “It is too early for that, but you are breeding,” repeated the older woman. She smiled at her daughter. “In these matters I am expert. One day you will be too. Have you told your husband yet?”

  Blaze shook her head. “I was not certain, and had I even suggested it, Edmund would not have let me come. He would have remembered poor Lady Catherine and all her sickness. I am not like his first wife in any way, Mama. I am strong, and I will bear my lord strong sons. I would not have missed the twins’ wedding for anything in the world!”

  Lady Rosemary frowned. “Blaze,” she said, “you are a Wyndham, and your first duty is to the Wyndhams, not to the Morgans. We are now your second loyalty, but your first must always be to the family whose name you carry, and whose sons you will bear. If you have endangered your child by your willful actions, you will never forgive yourself, but,” she finished, seeing her daughter’s distressed and contrite look, “I do not believe you have, for you are very much like me in form. You will carry your babes to term.”

  “When, Mama, do you think my child is due?”

  “Depending upon when Edmund’s seed took root within your womb, sometime just before the year’s end, I should suspect. There were times when I knew exactly when your father and I had created a child, but not with the first. That is an instinct that comes with experience.”

  “A child,” Blaze whispered softly, and then quick tears filled her lovely violet-blue eyes. “Oh, Mama! I feel so blest!”

  Rosemary Morgan put her arms about her eldest daughter. “You are, Blaze, for to be chosen to bear life is the greatest gift of all. Remember that in the future when you think to allow your own personal desires to overrule your common sense. Now, let us rejoin the others, lest the gentlemen miss us and think something amiss,” she said with a smile. “Nothing must spoil your sisters’ wedding!”

  Chapter 7

  Bliss and Blythe Morgan were married on the last day of April in the year 1522. After weeks of rain the day dawned fair and remained that way. Father John conducted the marriage ceremony in Ashby’s small church, St. Hilda’s. The wedding party walked the short distance down the tree-lined lane from the house. The Ashby folk standing along the lane were treated to a fine view of the two brides, and cheered them mightily as, skirts held up to keep them from the mud, they tripped by.

  The twins were gowned identically in dresses of heavy cream-colored satin brocade whose bodices were sewn with tiny pearls and gold thread, as were the sleeves and underskirts. Their lovely blond hair was unbound, attesting to their maiden state, and upon each head was a garland of white roses whose centers were a pinkish-gold. Each carried a nosegay of white violets tied with gold ribbons. There was only one difference between the two. Bliss, about her slender neck, wore a rope of perfectly matched pearls from which hung a gold pendant in the shape of a heart studded with pearls and tiny diamonds. Blythe had a strand of small pearls and garnets. Their necklets were gifts from their grooms.

  The ceremony uniting the two couples was held in the open upon the church steps so that all might see, for St. Hilda’s was not a large building. Then the bridal party entered into the church for a Mass, to emerge an hour later to the cheering throng. Before returning back down the lane to the house, Lord Morgan ceremoniously invited all to join with them in the wedding feast. Tables had been placed upon the lawn, with a high board for the gentry being set upon a dais beneath a red silk awning.

  There was food aplenty, and as the day grew warmer, Lord Morgan’s goodly supply of ale was sorely drained. Musicians with their drums, tabors, and pipes played accompaniment to the lively dances being performed upon the green grass. Two bridecakes were served, and the village maidens nibbled but a taste, secreting the rest in their pockets to dream upon this night. It was said that the man a girl dreamed of upon a bit of bridal cake would be her true love.

  The evening came and torches were lit, for the music and dancing showed no signs of abating. Lord Morgan’s ale supply was as yet holding out, and few were of a mind to go home, for the night was clear with a bright, almost full moon, and the air still pleasant. Finally, with the sunset at least three hours past, it was deemed time to put the brides and their grooms to bed. Bridal chambers had been arranged in the room that had been shared by the tw
ins and their sisters, and in the house’s only guest chamber. Since the rooms were next to one another there was not too great a difficulty in preparing both girls at the same time, although there was much scurrying back and forth between the two bedchambers.

  Bliss flushed with excitement. She looked eagerly forward to her deflowering, although deep within her there lurked the tiniest fear. Still, her mother had given them both a dry lecture on a wife’s duties several weeks before, so they knew what was expected of them. It seemed that Vanora’s tales were fairly accurate, but it was not until Blaze spoke with the twins that Bliss felt entirely at ease.

  “Lovemaking is wonderful!” she had enthused to them the evening before.

  “Tell, tell!” demanded the twins. They were alone but for Blaze, having firmly ejected their other sisters from the discussion.

  “It is really impossible to describe,” Blaze said. “You must be involved to really understand.”

  “There must be something that you can tell us,” said Bliss irritably. “The first time! What was it like the first time?”

  Blaze laughed softly. “Edmund and I did not celebrate our wedding night for several weeks after our wedding,” she confessed.

  “Ohhh!” Blythe’s eyes were round with surprise.

  Bliss, as ever, was more direct. “How could you bear to wait?” she demanded. “I know nothing of what lovemaking is, and yet I am so hot to be with Owen that I cannot sleep at night, and worse, I ache with a longing that I don’t even understand.”

  “You know Owen, and Blythe knows her Nicholas. Do you forget that I had never even laid eyes upon Edmund until the day I became his wife? How could I desire a man whose face I would not even recognize? When I voiced my fears to him, he understood, and took the time to woo me before consummating our marriage. I think I fell in love with him because of his kindness and patience.